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En los últimos años, entre la opinión pública se ha extendido la idea de que es necesario poner freno a muchas tradiciones y prácticas que implican el sufrimiento animal. Estas reivindicaciones en ocasiones se han hecho demandando un aumento de la regulación y, en otras, defendiendo la abolición de la relación entre los animales humanos y no humanos porque los primeros siempre explotan a los segundos. El término «derechos de los animales» ha comenzado a utilizarse en el discurso social y político, siendo muchas veces discutido por parte de los juristas que entienden que sin agencia y subjetividad moral difícilmente alguien puede ser titular de derechos, sino más bien receptor de determinados deberes. En otros casos, los que han utilizado la expresión derechos de los animales se referían a derechos morales y no a derechos jurídicos, faltando un análisis legal detallado acerca de cómo plasmar esas reivindicaciones morales en normas jurídicas efectivas.El presente volumen pretende colmar en parte esa laguna. Por un lado, se defiende que los animales son miembros de la comunidad moral en tanto que están dotados tanto de moral como estructura como de moral como contenido y son capaces de aprender y obedecer (y desobedecer) determinadas reglas. A partir de ahí, se entiende que son las comunidades políticas las que reconocen derechos jurídicos a sus miembros y, en este sentido, no todos los animales pertenecen a las mismas comunidades políticas, como Sue Donaldson y Will Kymlicka explicaron con detalle en Zoopolis (2011). Este libro repasa los derechos de ciudadanía que tendrían que tener reconocidos los animales que forman parte de nuestras comunidades políticas, derechos que no solo son de libertad, sino que alcanzan también a los derechos sociales y los derechos políticos, analizando cuestiones como la ganadería industrial, la alimentación o el uso de pieles. Tomarse en serio los derechos de los animales significa otorgarles la condición de ciudadanos con iguales derechos que los que los ciudadanos humanos ya disfrutamos.

Care-giving is an activity that has been practiced by all human societies. From the earliest societies through to the present, all humans have faced choices regarding how people in positions of dependency are to be treated. As such, care-giving, and the form it takes, is a central experience of being a human and one that is culturally mediated. Archaeology has tended to marginalise the study of care, and debates surrounding our ability to recognise it within the archaeological record have often remained implicit rather than a focus of discussion. These 12 papers examine the topic of care in past societies and specifically how we might recognise the provision of care in archaeological contexts and to open up an inter-disciplinary conversation, including historical, bioarchaeological, faunal and philosophical perspectives. The topic of ‘care'is examined through three different strands: the provision of care throughout the life course, namely that provided to the youngest and oldest members of a society; care-giving and attitudes towards impairment and disability in prehistoric and historic contexts, and the role of animals as both recipients of care and as tools for its provision.

Since the early nineteenth century, numerous campaigns have denounced the mistreatment of animals. Originally published in French as La cause animale, this book compares the British and French histories of the animal-protection movement to retrace its origins and assess its impact up to the present day. As Christophe Traïni shows, the struggle for animal rights-inextricably linked to the rise of philanthropy and established long before the birth of the ecology movement-developed out of several important social and political processes, including changes in sensibilities and socially approved emotions, new definitions of what constitutes legitimate violence, and the influence of religious beliefs.

The concept of'modernity'is central to many disciplines, but what is modernity to animals? Susan Nance answers this question through a radical reinterpretation of the life of Jumbo the elephant. In the 1880s, consumers, the media, zoos, circuses and taxidermists, and (unknowingly) Jumbo himself, transformed the elephant from an orphan of the global ivory trade and zoo captive into a distracting international celebrity. Citizens on two continents imaged Jumbo as a sentient individual and pet, but were aghast when he died in an industrial accident and his remains were absorbed by the taxidermic and animal rendering industries reserved for anonymous animals. The case of Jumbo exposed the'human dilemma'of modern living, wherein people celebrated individual animals to cope or distract themselves from the wholesale slaughter of animals required by modern consumerism.

Jared Diamond and other leading scholars have argued that the domestication of animals for food, labor, and tools of war has advanced the development of human society. But by comparing practices of animal exploitation for food and resources in different societies over time, David A. Nibert reaches a strikingly different conclusion. He finds in the domestication of animals, which he renames'domesecration,'a perversion of human ethics, the development of large-scale acts of violence, disastrous patterns of destruction, and growth-curbing epidemics of infectious disease.Nibert centers his study on nomadic pastoralism and the development of commercial ranching, a practice that has been largely controlled by elite groups and expanded with the rise of capitalism. Beginning with the pastoral societies of the Eurasian steppe and continuing through to the exportation of Western, meat-centered eating habits throughout today's world, Nibert connects the domesecration of animals to violence, invasion, extermination, displacement, enslavement, repression, pandemic chronic disease, and hunger. In his view, conquest and subjugation were the results of the need to appropriate land and water to maintain large groups of animals, and the gross amassing of military power has its roots in the economic benefits of the exploitation, exchange, and sale of animals. Deadly zoonotic diseases, Nibert shows, have accompanied violent developments throughout history, laying waste to whole cities, societies, and civilizations. His most powerful insight situates the domesecration of animals as a precondition for the oppression of human populations, particularly indigenous peoples, an injustice impossible to rectify while the material interests of the elite are inextricably linked to the exploitation of animals. Nibert links domesecration to some of the most critical issues facing the world today, including the depletion of fresh water, topsoil, and oil reserves; global warming; and world hunger, and he reviews the U.S. government's military response to the inevitable crises of an overheated, hungry, resource-depleted world. Most animal-advocacy campaigns reinforce current oppressive practices, Nibert argues. Instead, he suggests reforms that challenge the legitimacy of both domesecration and capitalism.

In this provocative inquiry into the status of animals in human society from the fifth century BC to the present, Rod Preece provides a wholly new perspective on the human-animal relationship. He skillfully demonstrates that, counter to prevailing intellectual opinion, ethical attitudes toward animals are neither restricted to the twentieth century nor the result of Darwin's theory of evolution. They have been part of Western thought and culture for centuries.